Kshaler wrote:
DW_a_mom wrote:
My son's schools gave my son scribe accommodations and reduced workload through 5th grade, and taught him to type in OT in 6th. Because he still had speed issues, he was given extra editing time and assistance in 7th and 8th. In a way, learning to type was THE task for middle school, and a huge amount of resource went into it. Now, in high school, he has perfect touch type and types absolutely everything.
I think you need to find out why your son doesn't use his net book. At 12, typing is THE way to go, unless the problems in his hands are so severe that he can't learn that comfortably, either. He needs to understand this isn't a choice; he cannot scribe forever, and he is going to have to type or close some doors move to assistive voice technology. If he needs that, he needs that, but it is time to pick the path, in my opinion. I feel really good about the way it all timed out for my son; he got the skills he needed most by the time he needed them most.
Note that some of what you describe is related to executive function and developmental maturity. Organizational skills and assignment tracking are huge problems for many middle schoolers, especially boys and especially ASD kids. Many schools now have homework hotlines, school loop, or other postings so that parents can help their kids stay on top of it all. If your school doesn't offer any of these things, push for it. Your son will eventually grow into those skills, or at least improve, but he needs time and support.
Hi Dw I hope you are still watching this post I just had an IEP and I had a 15 minute argument with the ot over it bieng or not bieng here job to do this I was wondering what your ot did to help she is clueless she wanted to drop him ofcourse I got my way because I know my rights and was very prepared for the fight! you siad it took a huge amount of effort if you could elaborate I would be so gratful I told her I would do alittle more research and anyone else who might be listening if you have info please share .
Kshaler
Hi, I've been working lots of overtime and am on my phone so I'll keep it brief.
My son received an hour a week of OT throughout 6th grade that focused exclusively on keyboarding. That was the program the OT suggested right off at the IEP, so there wasn't much discussion. He didn't qualify for it after 6th grade because he met the fluency standard at the end of the year even though he was still typing in his own shorthand instead of actual English, so we asked that he be assigned practice in his academic support class, and that is generally what he did for the rest of middle school: went to academic support instead of an elective and typed out his notes and assignments from his other classes while there, and worked on editing, spell checking, and so on so he could not only type at a certain number of words per minute, but actually produce documents in proper English.
I was frustrated that the OT had such a low threshold for fluency, but all IEP services seem to have these objective cut offs, and since we were able to program in the academic support, it worked out fine. Even the academic support, however, required a little bending by the school because those classes normally have a specified curriculum, and my son was pretty much inventing his own. Whenever there was a sub he'd get stuck doing the below grade worksheets but he learned to just accept that as part of being the unique kid - subs don't get the memo. We are finding that dropping academic support now that he doesn't need it takes a little doing, but that is how things go with schools - beaurocracy exists.
My son also had organization problems, and can't spell worth beans, so all that got worked on in the academic support class, too. He definitely missed having an elective, but he understood why he needed that time and practice and we made it up to him letting him take expensive specialty camps in the summer.
While it sounds like he didn't do anything in academic support he couldn't have done at home, he wouldn't done all this at home. At school he expects to be stretching and learning; once home, he wants to follow his own interests, and he needs to be able to do that (plus knocking off some homework is easier than trying to learn to type and edit). Plus, before he started doing the editing at school we had teachers questioning if we were writing for him. This way the teachers could work together, and they all liked that.
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Mom to an amazing young adult AS son, plus an also amazing non-AS daughter. Most likely part of the "Broader Autism Phenotype" (some traits).
09 Mar 2012, 10:03 am
